I'd love to know what Publius actually does for a living. Some folks here are pretty coy about their identities, which is fine by me, but is kind of a handicap in a discussion when a person's background has a lot to do with their opinions.

He sure as heck sounds like somebody from a campus.

And yeah, I have to discuss pure libertarianism from a theoretical standpoint too, but at least it has solid philosophical underpinnings under it, and is the only political philosophy that is not just a fancy excuse for looting and controlling your fellow man.

As far as practical applications go, even if there are no nations with "pure" forms of these governmental philosophies to use as examples, one can easily see where on the scale between liberty and tyranny a country lies, and draw conclusions by comparing that to the prosperity, freedom and safety of the nation and its citizens. When one does this for various regimes this century, the conclusions are obvious.